KI TEYTZEY 5782

Germany's President Teaches a Lesson on Teshuvah

They slipped through the stillness of Munich’s Olympic Village an hour before dawn—8 shadowy figures, in a variety of disguises, with machine guns and hand grenades concealed in athletic-equipment bags. The 6’ 6” chain-link fence was easy to scale, and the doors of the building were unlocked, making the intruders’ task tragically simple. But this was the Olympics of openness, friendship and serenity, of the new German image, and for 10 days it had been a festive success. So it was excruciatingly ironic that the widely praised casual atmosphere played right into the hands of the 8 Palestinian terrorists as they made their way unchallenged across the 60-yard expanse from the fence to Building 31 on Connollystrasse, climbed to the 2^nd floor rooms occupied by the Israelis, and re-enacted the darkest ritual of German history—the sharp and ominous knock on the Jews’ door.

         The noise signaled the start of a long day’s journey into death. Some 19 hours later, 17 people had been slain: 11 Israelis, 5 of the Arab terrorists and one German policeman. And during much of that agonizing interval, the world watched in horrified fascination on live television…

What I have just read to you is from Newsweek’s lead story of the massacre of Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympic Games, September 5-6, 1972. I know the world today is focused on the passing of Queen Elizabeth at 96. She was a beacon of light in this world for so many. I will speak about her at another time. However, today we must not allow this important 50^th anniversary of the Munich massacre to pass us by without taking notice.

Even though 50 years have passed, the threat of terrorism continues unabated as we saw just recently outside Jerusalem’s Old City walls near King David’s Tomb. A Palestinian terrorist fired on a bus full of people, wounding many—including a pregnant woman and 5 Americans. Just yesterday a heavily armed Palestinian was apprehended outside of Tel Aviv on his way to kill.

For decades, the International Olympic Committee refused to allow even one minute of silence to remember the Munich 11 and only begrudgingly allowed mention of it at the last Olympics. Not denouncing terror, not remembering its victims only legitimizes the terror and puts us all in danger.

And for 50 years the families of the victims have had an awful experience getting information, compensation and just acknowledgement from the German government. But last week things began to change. At the 50^th anniversary memorial ceremony with the victims’ families in attendance, German President Frank Walter-Steinmeier—for the 1^st time—expressed remorse and regret on behalf of Germany who failed to protect Jewish athletes (even refusing Israeli security offers)…regret on behalf of Germany who the botched rescue operation…and regret on behalf of Germany who treated the families and the State of Israel in a cold, dishonest way. He said:

         I ask for your forgiveness for the inadequate protection afforded to the Israeli athletes at the Olympic Games in Munich, and for the woefully inadequate investigation afterwards. For the fact that it was possible for what happened to happen. I have a duty and need to recognize Germany’s responsibility here and now and to the future.

This statement is amazing in itself, but it’s particularly fascinating to consider that the president of Germany said this now when, in the Jewish calendar, this is the time to do teshuvah—to repent for past wrongdoings! In this month before Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, when Rabbis are teaching the 5 steps of teshuva outlined by Maimonides, ironically, it is the President of Germany who this week gave the world a stunning example of how to repent!

President Steinmeier spoke as if he had studied Maimonides. Let’s review Maimonides’ 5 steps to repentance in this light:

         The 1^st step of teshuva is Hakarat hacheyt, admitting you did something wrong—without rationalizations or excuses. Here’s how President Steinmeier began his address: Today’s act of remembrance can only be sincere if we are prepared to recognize painful facts—if we acknowledge that the story of the Olympic attack is also a story of misjudgments and of dreadful, fatal mistakes: of, in fact, failure. We are talking about a great tragedy and a triple failure.

         The 1^st failure regards the preparations for the games and the security strategy; the 2^nd comprises the events of Sept. 5 and 6, 1972; and the 3^rd failure begins the day after the attack: the silence, the denial, the forgetting.

         Maimonides’ 2^nd step is Charata, regret. President Steinmeier acknowledged that it was Germany’s responsibility as the host of the games to protect all the athletes—especially those from Israel. In an admission, tinged with remorse, he confessed: There were survivors of the Shoah (Holocaust) among the athletes and their coaches. Their safety had been entrusted to us and we failed.

         The 3^rd step is azibat hachet, abandoning my wrong habits by undertaking to act differently in the future. After 5 decades of Germany denying the existence of the archives and evading their obligation to the victims’ families, he is turned to the families saying: You have a right to finally know the truth, to finally receive answers to the questions that have tormented you for decades.

         The 4^th step is to ask forgiveness, and he did that well as I noted earlier.

         The 5^th step is to make restitution. The German government—after its long refusal to do so—offered the victims’ families a compensation package of $28 million.

Genuine teshuva (repentance), our sages assert, has the power to change the past. Yes, the damage remains, but the person who has done genuine teshuva is no longer the same agent of wrongdoing. By transforming oneself, through admitting, regretting, resolving to act differently in the future, apologizing, and making restitution, the one who did evil has become an agent of light.

My friends, let’s see as we approach Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, how we can change our personal past to a better future through admitting how we did wrong and hurt others, regretting it, resolving to act differently, apologizing, and making restitution. President Frank Walter-Steinmeier deserves credit for showing us how to do it.

Please rise for a moment of silence for the 11 Israeli athletes murdered in Munich 50 years ago this week, followed by the memorial prayer Moley Rachamim. Their names are: Moshe Weinberg, Yossef Romano, Ze’ev Friedman, David Berger, Yaakov Springer, Eliezer Halfin, Yossef Gutfreund, Kehat Shorr, Mark Slavin, Andre Spitzer, Amitzur Shapira. T’hi nishmatam tz’rurot bachayim, “May their souls be bound up in the bond of life.” Amen!